Memory is a brain activity by which we encode and store data. As we all know, the process often produces untrustworthy results. When I couldn’t find my glove this morning, I “knew” absolutely that I’d dropped it last night when I walked the dog. I went back to the exact spot and searched. It wasn’t there. When I came back to the house, I discovered the missing glove in the pocket of a coat I don’t remember wearing on the night walk.
Such things don’t yet worry me. I can still retrieve the numbers, codes and digits I require. My basic data storage and retrieval is still operational.
I’m more caught up by what we mean when we talk about memories, our recollections of the past. I have specific visions I can see: my uncle’s farm, my family around the dining room table, my fifth-grade classroom. Some of these images are sharp, others are hazy and filtered.
One oddly specific detail I do recall is riding an old-fashioned streetcar–the kind that ran on tracks and connected to overhead cables. The last trolley in Milwaukee, where I grew up, stopped running before I turned nine. If I was riding at that age, I must have been with my mother. It’s hard to imagine her sending me alone. I was not an adventurous sort and even a familiar ride might have generated some concern on my part. We didn’t have cell phones from which to send anxious text messages and receive reassuring replies.
So perhaps she was with me and I can’t picture it. Nor can I swear to the time of year, although I feel it might have been early autumn.
What I do remember is looking out the window and noticing a woman in a turquoise dress. What used to be called a housecoat, with buttons (maybe gray) up the front. An everyday dress. She was substantially built, I think, not likely to be bothered by the stiff breeze off Lake Michigan. Permed hair, I think, maybe brown or blond. She was carrying something, a purse and maybe another bag. Just then, a stray gust kicked up her dress and revealed a black slip beneath.
Why do I remember this event after so many years? I’m not sure. I know that after a while, I made a point of pulling up the image of the woman in the turquoise dress with the black slip just to see if I could. It was like a game, a challenge I gave my brain to hold onto the picture. Not because what I noticed was so unusual or amazing, but because it was so ordinary.
That memory seems to be divorced from any emotional context. I’m amused at its persistent presence, but that’s about it. It doesn’t trigger in me a sense of pleasure or pain. The smell of baking bread, on the other hand, reminds me of my childhood. Not because my mother baked, mind you, but because downtown Milwaukee was home to a large Wonder Bread factory. Other sounds summon up snapshots of a ballgame, an afternoon sledding, a spring day. Those memories make me smile.
Remembering people is harder for me, especially those whose permanent absence is a constant ache. We’ve all received instruction in the throes of grief to “remember the happy times” or to “make new memories.” I haven’t been able to effectively manage either of those brain exercises, to tell the truth. The death of my sister is too recent, too raw, and too seared on my brain to spend much time fondly recalling our madcap road trips together. Touching that part of my life hurts as much as touching a hot stove.
I’m told this will pass.
As for making new memories, that’s also been a challenge. The pandemic has stalled my attempts to find comfort, let alone accumulate new experiences.
This too shall pass. At least I want to believe it will, and that someday I can welcome back old memories and welcome new ones.
In the meantime, I’ll place myself on that old streetcar and become, once again, an eight year old girl watching a woman in a turquoise dress walk down the street, her black slip peeking out from underneath her hem.